[lit-ideas] Re: Allusion in Popper and Grice
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 May 2015 10:06:46 +0000 (UTC)
Having argued against the Pavlovianism (except of the chocolate sort), I do
take JLS rapid response as among the most cogent evidence for the view there
are automatic reflexes.
Dnl
On Tuesday, 5 May 2015, 10:26, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In a message dated 5/5/2015 4:29:29 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx in "Re: Carrying On - Horticulturally" quotes:
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT [IM WESTEN NICHTS NEUES]
and writes: [T]his is where Beckett got his opening line: "The sun shone,
having no choice, on the nothing new." [See "Allusion in Joyce and Beckett -
and Popper".]
O. T. O. H., there's allusion in Grice. Of all the Great War songs, Grice
was fascinated by one: "It's the same the whole world over", not the
refrain so much, whose melody he found trite (he was a fine pianist) but the
first line to the first (out of the 34) verses:
"She was poor but she was honest".
Grice's conceptual analysis of 'but' reflects Fregean intentions, only
Frege called it 'colour, while Grice prefers 'implicature': there is a
conventional implicature to the effect that 'but', while carrying the same
logical
form of 'and', triggers something in the addressee (Logical form: "p & q").
As time passed on, Grice came back to earlier songs, and later ones. For
example of hyperbole -- another type of implicature, this time
conversational, rather than conventional, he gives:
"Every nice girl loves a sailor".
--- The implicature being that the sailor is perhaps a different one. He
was one, so he would not know, but every girl would.
For example of a metaphor he gives the title of a late 1920s song,
"You're the cream in my coffee, you're the salt in my stew."
Vanderveken and Searle attempted an analysis of 'allusion'. Surely it's the
Alluding that's basic, and even more, the utterer ALLUDING that p.
Holdcroft revises this in "Indirectness" in "Journal of Rhetoric".
What is that Popper is alluding?
What is that Grice is alluding?
Grice is alluding to a mock. His surname is French (cfr. the etymology of
the colour 'grey' as in 'fifty shades of grice' -- now playing in France,
dubbed).
allude: literally, 1530, "mock," from Middle French "alluder" or directly
from Ancient Latin "alludere", as used by Cicero to mean, "to play, sport,
joke, jest,". Derived from prefix "ad-" "to" (see ad-) + "ludere" "to play"
(see ludicrous). The figurative extension "to make an indirect reference,
point in passing" is only from 1570.
It's all different with Joyce and Beckett.
In fact, a student of Grice's alluded to Beckett when alluding to Grice.
Qua tutor at St. John's Grice would often (if not almost always) be late
(which are boring things anyway) since he'd rather stay at the "Lamb and Flag"
or across the street from St. Giles, at "Bird and Baby": therefore he was
known by this tutees as "Godo'", which is how Beckett, alluding to a French
pronunciation, referred to a character who is alluded in the eponymous
play, but who is ONLY alluded, 'Godo'' not gracing the scene with his presence.
To allude, figuratively, the utterer must pick up the referent.
When in 1540 'allusion', was first used figuratively, the allusion was to
Latin "allusionem" (nominative "allusio") "a playing with, a reference to",
the mere noun of action from past participle stem of "alludere (see
allude).
As Holdcroft notes in his essay in "The Journal of Rhetoric", crediting
Grice, "an allusion is never an outright or explicit mention of the person or
thing the speaker seems to have in mind", but an implicature.
Grice knew about this.
Popper's allusions are perhaps more difficult to track, since his field was
the philosophy of science ("our man in the philosophy of science") and he
was never sure if the regular philosophy student would catch his obscure
references to this or that scientist he happened to have an acquaintance with
since his early Vienna days -- where _things_ happened.
There is a book on allusion on Borges: he used to say that for "x" there is
always the possibility that somone may make the theoretical claim that "x"
alludes to "y": "the onus, however, is on the alluder, not the alludee",
and in this, he was being Griceian.
Cheers,
Speranza
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